Janus
by MegElemental
Summary: Dick threw his phone into his pile of clothes and turned towards the siren call of the trapeze. He couldn't be long. Just a quick routine… Just five minutes… T for mild language.


**AN: I've been lurking in this fandom for a while now, and I thought I should contribute something. I'm not really sure how my idea changed into this, but yeah.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice. **

**P.S. I'm English, so I may not have managed all the Americanisms. Apology in advance. I'd appreciate knowing what mistakes I've made, though, so drop me a line in a review if you catch anything. Cheers m'dears.**

The bell rang just as Richard Grayson sat down in his seat.

_That was close. If I oversleep again this week…_

He needn't have worried about being late, however. His English teacher, Mrs Frawley, seemed oblivious of his hurried entry as she wrote out the class work on the board.

'… on page 56 of your books on WW1 poetry you'll find two of the poems you need for this essay…'

He tuned in to her instructions just in time to catch the page number. As one, the class reached down into their bags to pull out their books. All but one, in fact.

'Um, Miss?' said a blonde girl from the desk by the window. 'I'm kind of new, and I don't have any books yet or anything…' she trailed off with a look on her face that said she would rather have been anywhere else.

Dick froze. He knew that voice.

_Why hadn't Bruce told him Artemis was going to his school! And due to his- well, Richard Grayson's prowess at education, the age difference meant they were actually in the same classes?_

He fought the urge to look at Artemis, panicking slightly. If she recognized him…

But she'd only ever seen him with his glasses or mask on, he reasoned with himself, and she was relatively new to the team. In fact, out of everyone in Young Justice, the female archer was probably the least likely to recognise him in his everyday identity as Richard Grayson. He just hoped she wasn't very observant.

_If I keep my head down and avoid confrontation… it's not like it's cool to talk to the thirteen-year-old kid in the class anyway…_

'Oh, of course dear, I'm so sorry. I'm sure someone will be happy to share with you.' Mrs Frawley's gaze swept the class like a searchlight, and Dick bent his head closer to his book and pretended to be reading, whilst simultaneously trying to give off _don't notice me _vibes. He wished he had camouflage mode like M'gann.

'Ahh, Richard,' the teacher said, her dreaded gaze alighting on his bent head. 'Would you mind lending your book to Artemis and sharing with your neighbour?'

Dick swallowed his groan.

'Sure,' he said, before getting up and walking over to Artemis' table. He would have preferred to toss the book across- he would have easily hit his target- but it didn't fit with the swotty persona it had taken him a long time to build. _Robin _could have made the throw with ease, but _Richard Grayson _didn't touch sports with a barge pole and could barely weight lift a tin of beans.

He kept his head bent the whole way, hunching his shoulders and shuffling his feet, the gait of someone who spent more time in front of a computer than running in the fresh air. He placed the book gently on Artemis' table as though it were sacred, and managed to produce quite a superb blush when she thanked him. In reality, his cheeks were flushed due to the sticky situation. He felt all hot and bothered.

_If she finds out…_

He sat back in his seat and stared at the board for the rest of the lesson, not trusting himself to look back. While he kept a firm gaze on Mrs Frawley with the appearance of rapt attention, inside his mind whirled with ideas of what to do about the _situation._

By the end of the lesson no light bulbs had flashed a plan in his brain, and he left English quickly and awkwardly, completely forgetting that Artemis had his book.

YJYJYJYJYJYJYJ

_The bloody school was a rabbit warren, _Artemis thought as she wound her way through flocks of students who all looked the same, down a corridor that also exactly identical to every other one she had wandered down in the past ten minutes. She was _sure _the lunch hall was down here _somewhere._

She felt absurdly out of place in the posh _Gotham City Academy, _surrounded by rich kids who all looked down their noses at her. The _charity case_. The _scholarship girl. _

She scanned the people around her, but no friendly faces stared back. It was all she could do not to burst into angry tears of frustration.

'Hey, you're Artemis, right? Artemis Crock?' A hand landed on her shoulder. Almost reflexively Artemis turned and formed a defensive position, to be greeted by the puzzled face of a girl with dark red hair and large brown eyes.

'Yes?' she said, relaxing her tense stance slightly, realising how strange she must have looked.

'I'm Barbara Gordon,' said the girl, smiling widely. 'I thought you might like some help with directions.'

'Oh.' Artemis was torn between not admitting she was lost and accepting the help of the only friendly person in the whole _fricking _school. 'Yes,' she said finally, warring with herself and winning. 'I would. Thanks.'

'No problem,' Barbara grinned again. To her embarrassment, Artemis' stomach chose that moment to grumble loudly. 'Lunch is that way,' Barbara pointed, and both girls began to giggle.

YJYJYJYJYJYJYJ

Dick was playing moodily with the inedible mush on his plate when Babs stuck her elbow in his ribs and forced him to move up the bench.

'Oh, hey,' he said distantly, watching his forkful of sludge slop back onto his plate.

'Hi. You know the new girl?'

Oh great. His favourite topic.

'Yeah. She was in my English class,' he said, scooping up a wilted broccoli.

'Oh good! You've met. Only I invited her to sit with us.'

'What?' The broccoli flew across the table as Dick jerked in his seat. 'No… you can't Babs, she's _on my team.' _He said the last bit through gritted teeth. Barbara took a moment to understand.

'What, Young Jus-'

'Yes. _That one. _The one where none of them are supposed to know my _real name._'

'Ah. Sorry.' Barbara winced. 'The one where if you tell them your name Ba- Bruce would basically go supernova?'

'… yes.'

She looked very apologetic. 'Whoops. Well, just… act like a really big nerd.'

'Gee, thanks,' he said sarcastically, 'I hadn't thought of that one.'

'Um… are you sure you don't mind me sitting here?' asked a cautious voice from beside them. Barbara grinned so manically she almost resembled the Joker.

'No! We don't mind at all!'

Dick winced into his plate. Babs sounded overly cheerful, and from what he could tell from the little of Artemis' face he could see the girl was slightly confused. He wished he could hide behind his mop of hair, but no, _Richard Grayson _the _swot wonder _wore his hair slicked back.

Still, at least he looked nothing like _Robin, _who wouldn't be seen _dead _with his hair combed.

'It's Richard, isn't it? From English?'

'Yes,' he said, his voice squeaking slightly. An uneasy silence fell on the table, hit it with a _thunk _and rolled off with a groan. Dick concentrated on stuffing his food as quickly as possible.

'So, how's your first day so far?' Barbara asked Artemis, her voice still too bright and happy.

'It's been ok,' the archer said reluctantly, 'but I keep getting lost.'

Dick spooned the last of his mash into his mouth, swallowed with difficulty, and stood up.

'Mathletes,' he muttered, 'got to go. Sorry.' And with that, he sped off, remembering at the last minute to look uncoordinated and awkward.

YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ

Artemis watched the retreating boy's back with confusion.

'Did… I say anything?' She asked Barbara, who was also staring after Richard Grayson with some confusion.

'I thought Mathletes was on a wednes-' she turned to look at Artemis, and the large smile made another appearance. 'No, it wasn't you, he's just… very keen about schoolwork and clubs and things.'

'I can tell,' Artemis said. She had been impressed that the young boy was in her English class, at least two or three years above his own.

'Yes, he's very clever,' Barbara continued. 'And usually very nice. I think he's slightly… stressed… today.'

Artemis shrugged. The boy had looked like a genius- his dark hair was slicked back and his uniform was spotless. He hadn't been bad-looking, though, not like the stereotypical geek- his eyes were bright, unwavering blue and Artemis thought that in a few years he could be on par with Superboy. He'd need to fill out first though, as Artemis had no doubt that he was as scrawny as anything underneath his square-fitted uniform.

'He's Bruce Wayne's ward, isn't he?' she asked, and Barbara nodded sharply and then quickly changed the topic.

Barbara drew her into conversation, and Artemis started to relax for the first time since she'd arrived at the school in the morning. It wasn't that there was an unfriendly atmosphere- well, there was- but she just didn't feel like she _fitted _in the place. A round peg in a square hole, so to speak.

_A little like how she felt in the team…_

She hated to admit it, but it was true. She had been a latecomer, a tacked-on extra, a _replacement._ Everyone had already bonded, linked, shared. She'd immediately created friction with Kid Flash (though he _was _an idiot) and M'gann already had an established crush on Superboy that everyone else seemed to know about. To top it off, she was the only one without super powers…

No. That was wrong, wasn't it? _Robin _had no super powers. _Robin _was the youngest of the group. And yet… the way he flew through the air, the way he disappeared into the darkness with the chilling laugh (what Wally called his 'ninja thing'), the way he hacked into any computer with ease, made it almost seem as though he _did _have super powers.

'… and there's a _huge _library if you need to look anything up, and there's a pool, and on really _hot _days some guys sell ice creams in the quad to raise money for charities…'

Artemis listened to Barbara with one ear as she ate her food. It was surprisingly nice- much nicer than the school dinners at her old school, anyway. But then, she supposed, the large amount of money poured into the school by all the millionaire daddies must go somewhere.

YJYJYJYJYJYJYJ

'And this is the gym!' Barbara said with a grand sweeping gesture. 'What d'you think?'

'Wow,' said Artemis as she entered. And she meant it. The high ceiling and state-of-the-art equipment was a far cry from the small hall with the leaking roof and mouldy crash mats at her old school.

'Can you use it whenever?' she asked, running a hand over the shining metal weights. She _loved _training, building up her muscles, imagining how far she could propel her arrows with her new strength. It made her feel… invincible.

'Oh, when you don't have lessons, and it's open after school. No one usually uses it.'

'Why not?'

'They've all got bigger and better ones at home,' Barbara shrugged. 'No point staying at school, I s'pose.'

Artemis shot another longing glance at the bench press.

'I might come back,' she said, as they left to go tour the swimming pool.

YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ

The bell had finally gone, marking the end of school, and Dick's class were all changing out of their gym gear to go home. Dick thought of the gym, and the longing rose in his chest.

Two and a half hours in that gym, watching those _idiots _swinging around on the trapeze. Two and a half _hours _listening to it calling his name. One hundred and fifty _minutes _of imagining himself flying through the air.

Yes, Bruce had installed a trapeze for Dick- or for _Robin_- at the mansion, but he'd been all safety conscious about height and so whenever he swung round his toes brushed the floor. There wasn't anything like it at the cave- it would be too much of a clue to his identity. Of course, the one in the school gym wasn't _circus tent _high- it was low enough that safety nets were a precaution rather than a necessity. And Dick knew that for him, they weren't needed at all.

The itching _longing _had been growing in his chest ever since the school year had begun in September and he'd walked into the gym to discover the newly installed trapeze. One of the coaches had suggested it, apparently, saying it built good aerobic fitness, strength and grace.

_Oh, and didn't he just know that._

When the rest of his class (he took gym with his proper year) all pushed and shoved to have a go that first day, he had to pretend to be _scared _and _useless _and _bad_. He'd gripped that pole and swung and forced his body to be uncoordinated and stiff.

It was like pretending he didn't know how to walk.

And he had to watch the others swing when he could _fly._

'Are you coming, Dick?' A boy next to him asked. It was Brian, his- there was no better word for it- friend, and he was full dressed and ready to go. Dick was still in his gym polo shirt and shorts.

'No, you go on,' he said. Brian shrugged, and left. Dick was alone in the changing rooms. And temptation snaked around his heart.

The gym was empty when he creaked open the door and stuck his head round it.

No; he had to leave it. He had to be strong. He had his secret to think of.

His phone buzzed in his bag, making him jump guiltily.

It was Barbara.

'Artemis still has your book from English,' she said. 'Where are you?'

'I'm still at the gym,' Dick said, giving up on getting changed and deciding just to make a run for the car in his gym clothes.

There was muffled conversation on the other end of the line.

'Artemis says she knows where the gym is. Can she meet you there?'

'Ok,' he said. 'Tell Alfred I'll be a bit late.'

'I won't be there for a bit.' Artemis' voice was suddenly on the phone, making him almost drop it in shock. 'I have to go for a _first day review _with the head teacher.' Her voice sounded so put out that he laughed.

'Good luck with that,' he said, momentarily forgetting who he was, who _she was._

'I'll be around fifteen minutes,' she said. Dick glanced at the door to the gym, and temptation won.

'Fine,' he said. 'See you then.' Barbara's voice came back.

'I'll tell Alfred you'll be around twenty minutes then?' she said.

'Thanks.'

The line went dead. Dick threw his phone into his pile of clothes and turned towards the siren call of the trapeze. He couldn't be long. He hadn't chalked his hands or bound his wrists, after all. Just five minutes… He'd get into trouble if a teacher saw him use it without permission and without someone watching, but he didn't intend to be long. Just a quick routine…

Just five minutes…

YJYJYJYJYJYJYJ

'I'm sorry Miss Crock, but can we have this meeting tomorrow? Only I've got a very important…' the head teacher turned to his phone as it began ringing loudly, and Artemis knew she was dismissed. The secretary ushered her out quickly, and she felt slightly miffed. Still, what had she expected? She was the charity case, after all. It wasn't like they'd waste time with her. _She _didn't have a rich daddy who might take umbrage if his little girl was pushed to one side.

At least she'd be able to give Richard his book earlier.

She'd memorized the way to the gym in her desperation to use it- a place where she could train without Kid Idiot a mere blur and whine on the specially adapted treadmill, without Superboy bench-pressing about a hundred times her own limit. A place she didn't have to be _super, _just human.

There was no sign of Richard when she approached the large double doors, but there was a flash of movement through the portal-like windows. She walked slowly up; curious to see who was training in the gym no one needed.

She caught her breath.

There was someone on the trapeze, swinging- no, _flying- _through the air, a feat of aerial gymnastics she had never seen a human perform before. As she watched, they seemed to finished, flipping off the trapeze and doing one, no two, no three, no _four _somersaults before they landed perfectly, as light as a feather, on the mat. It was all she could do not to clap. As it was, her mouth was catching flies.

The person looked strangely familiar from behind- a small, lithe figure, messy black hair, an almost cocky air around the shoulders. They walked off to the changing rooms and she settled back against the wall to wait for Richard Grayson. It was about three minutes before he walked out the changing room, his hair perfectly coiffed, his uniform neat and starched, his face polite and shy, his walk ungainly and his shoulders hunched.

'Here,' she said, holding out the book. He took it with a mumbled 'thank you', quickly stuffing it into his bag and shoving his hands back into his pockets. Artemis brushed off his strange attitude, still amazed by the feat she had just seen. She wondered whether the boy was still in the changing rooms, and she was about to ask Grayson who the mysterious person in the gym had been, but Richard had hurried off, muttering something about 'catching his ride'. Artemis started off behind him, still wondering.

YJYJYJYJYJYJYJ

Richard Grayson sped through the corridors of the empty school, anxious to put distance between him and Artemis. He was almost positive she had seen him on the trapeze, but he hoped his quick change had thrown her off course. Changing from gym clothes to school uniform was _easy. _ There weren't even any _tights._

His hands burned with a comforting warmth in his pockets, the palms red and worn and aflame.

He'd missed the feeling.

YJYJYJYJYJYJYJ

Artemis was halfway home when a ludicrous thought appeared in her mind. What if Richard Grayson had been the boy in the gym? That would mean…

But it was ridiculous. Robin would never have such a soggy secret identity as Grayson. Besides, she doubted his millionaire foster father would let him run around the city in a cape and tights. He sent him to school with a _chauffeur _for God's sake.

But the idea hung around, and Artemis decided to keep a watch on Mr Grayson. There was a chance, however slim, that she had just discovered the Boy Wonder's identity.

Still, she couldn't be sure…

YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ

'Hey Artemis,' M'gann called as the cave announced her arrival. Artemis nodded in reply, but hurried quickly past the Martian, anxious to get to the computers.

The Internet connection at Mount Justice was a _hell _of a lot faster than her crappy old dial-up at home, and Artemis wanted to find out if her theory was correct sooner rather than later, so she could get it out of her head. She just couldn't stop _thinking _about it.

Despite wanting to know if Robin really was Richard Grayson, Artemis wasn't really sure whether she should delve deeper. Robin must have a reason for keeping his identity secret from the team, after all, and her conscience twinged slightly at finding out behind his back.

Curiosity killed the cat, and all that.

If she got on the wrong side of Robin, she knew who the team would side with. The Boy Wonder, the most experienced sideki… partner of them all? Or her, the _replacement_, the late addition.

Still, if she knew, it would be good blackmail material. Just in case.

_I can't believe I just thought that_.

Once she sat down in front of the monitor, however, her fingers made the decision for her. They hurriedly typed out **Richard Grayson **and hit enter before she had properly decided what she wanted to do.

It was all a load of rubbish anyway, she thought as she scrolled through yet another magazine article which gushed over and over about the handsome, philanthropic, and above all _millionaire _Bruce Wayne. Richard Grayson received only a short mention. There was nothing about his background, or how he came to live with Wayne.

That in itself was suspicious. If there had been a poor little orphan sob story, Artemis was sure the papers would have seized it with both hands. So something had been covered up.

She thought back to the boy in the gym- who, now she thought about it, had most probably been Grayson- and a part of his technique replayed in her mind's eye.

_A Quadruple somersault._

She typed that into Google, along with **trapeze**. It came up with a couple of videos, each showing a trapeze artist swinging on a trapeze and performing four simultaneous somersaults in the air before catching the hands of their fellow performer and then swinging back to their bar. It was amazing, astounding, _breathtaking… _or it would have been, if she hadn't seen Robin perform equally impossible tricks on a daily basis. And that boy in the gym- he'd done it without a partner, landing on the floor and barely denting the mat.

On a Wikipedia page it explained the difficulty of the quadruple somersault and listed a few of the people who were known to be able to perform it.

It was a short list.

A name caught her eye- or, indeed, a group name.

_The Flying Graysons._

_Grayson._

It didn't take long to pull up their sorry story onto the screen.

Artemis wondered how Wayne had managed to cover up Richard Grayson's past so well… he was a millionaire, she supposed.

So, Richard Grayson _was _Robin.

She _knew _it.

Tears came to her eyes as she read the report on the Grayson's deaths. She wiped them away furiously. She had no right to cry.

'A bit of light reading?'

She was up and ready to attack almost a second after the voice sounded behind her head. She relaxed her defensive position slightly when she saw it was Wally.

'Kid Idiot,' she acknowledged, lowering her hands. When she didn't have her bow on her, she found fists fit the bill easily enough.

Wally didn't rise to the bait. He just stared at her, his face unusually solemn.

'How long have you been behind me?' she asked.

'Long enough,' he said.

'Look, I-'

'You know too, then?' he asked, nodding brusquely at the computer screen. She nodded mutely. 'Only Miss M said you were acting kind of strange, so I went to see what you were up to.'

'You knew,' she managed, feeling flushed and embarrassed that he had caught her in the act.

'Yup. Dick told me.' He cocked an eyebrow at her, as if to say, _how on earth did you find out?_

'I… I go to Richard Grayson's school,' she explained, turning back to the computer and closing the internet window. 'I saw him… on the trapeze.'

'I wondered how you looked him up,' Wally said, still standing, still not moving. His eyes stared into hers. 'I thought Bats would have hidden it somehow.'

'Wait… Bruce Wayne is Batman? That…' _idiot? _Wally just stared at her.

'I don't trust you,' he said bluntly. 'I wish to God that it had been anyone else but you to find out about Dick. But, as it is…' he shrugged. 'There's nothing I can do about it. Just… don't be an idiot.'

He turned to leave. Artemis, feeling ashamed and repulsed with herself, made some effort to redeem her actions. She reached out and put a hand on his arm. He turned back towards her, his eyes flinty green.

'Wait… I wouldn't do anything to hurt him,' she said desperately. Wally, his serious face so at odds to his usual laid back, immature personality, gave her a piercing look.

'I wouldn't give you a chance,' he said, and walked away, leaving Artemis with the sense that she'd just ruined any chance she might have had of fitting into the team, The others may not know, but Wally would. Maybe he'd tell Robin, maybe he wouldn't, but either way she knew there was nothing she could do, short of saving his or Robin's life, to gain his trust.

She felt strange, unbalanced, as though she didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ

Robin sighed into the keyboard of the batcomputer as he accessed Artemis' search history from Mount Justice. Artemis had been searching the Flying Graysons on Google. So, Artemis had seen him in the gym, and guessed-correctly- that he was Robin. And he'd thought he'd done _so well. _

'I'm sorry, Robin,' Batgirl said, putting a consoling hand on his shoulder. 'I didn't know she was…'

'She was bound to have found out eventually,' he sighed. 'I just hope I can hide it from Batman for a while.'

'Hide what from me?' came a gravely voice from a shadowy corner of the batcave. Robin's fingers twitched, and the screen of the batcomputer switched off. His mouth hung open gormlessly as he searched for an excuse.

'That he's been playing video games instead of training,' Batgirl said quickly. Robin could have hugged her.

He arranged his face to look annoyed at Batgirl and met Batman's querying look with a shrug as if to say, _secret's out_.

Batman shot them both a stare, which they translated as _I'm not sure whether that's the truth but I'll find out sooner or later. _They both avoided his hidden eyes.

'We're needed at Gotham Bank,' he continued, heading towards the batmobile. Robin shot Batgirl a look and then they both raced towards the vehicle, Robin flipping into the front seat a second before Batgirl got there. Huffing, she got in the back and they sped off towards the bank.

Robin knew he'd have to deal with Artemis and everything later on, but right now, he was _Robin, _not _Richard Grayson, _and so he let the worry melt away.

He preferred Robin to Richard. But then, he wouldn't want to be _just _Robin.

Sometimes he felt like a split personality, both sides of him not the truth of him but exaggerated, just like Bruce and Batman, the millionaire playboy and dark vigilante. He was neither completely, but a bit of both. Maybe more vigilante than playboy, though, in recent years.

He, Dick, needed both sides, though, in equal measure, to make _him. _Just like Bruce.

And he wouldn't have it any other way.

**AN: I made a few assumptions. Wally knows about Dick, for one. Also, that Batman tried to conceal Robin's past to make it harder for people to make the connection from Richard Grayson to the Flying Graysons. And that his school persona is basically the opposite of Robin, to prevent any suspicion**_**. And**_** that a school installed a trapeze. Just blame it on all the money they don't know what to do with. So yeah. I hope you enjoyed!**

**Edit: None of my line breaks survived the transition from word to ff, so I had to re-upload. If the lovely reviews I received aren't saved, then I'd like to thank GrayAreas, TheGrayson and FuzzyBee13 for their wonderful comments.**


End file.
